Accomplice sentenced to 20 years in Rockville Metro shooting

May 2012 shooting injured two people

An 18-year-old Rockville man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison following his conviction of first-degree assault and a handgun charge in connection with a shooting that injured two people at the Rockville Metro station last year.

Prosecutors said Tavares Harris provided the gun used by another teen, Kevin Nguyen, in the shooting, which terrified scores of commuters waiting for their trains in the Rockville station on a weekday evening in May 2012.

Part of the evidence presented during Harris’s trial in Montgomery County Circuit Court were clips that Harris and others had posted on YouTube showing Harris rapping and holding a gun that prosecutors said was used in the shooting.

A Montgomery County jury deadlocked in December on the most serious charges facing Harris, including attempted first-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.

Nguyen, 17, pleaded guilty in December to attempted second-degree murder and the use of a handgun in a violent crime. Prosecutors had sought a 50-year sentence against Nguyen for his role in the brazen incident, which stemmed from an after-school dispute the day before and left a 16-year-old boy and a 19-year-old woman with gunshot wounds.